Thoughts on GOD and TRUTH
(found somewhere in the middle of ultra-conservatism and flaming liberalism)

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Thought of the Day !!

Make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your
faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral
excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and
self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with
godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly
affection with love for everyone. 2 Peter 1:5b-7 (NLT)

Peter
precedes this passage by telling us that God has given us everything we
need to be able to live godly lives. He also stated that God has given
us "great and precious promises". And then comes these words that
share how we ought to desire to respond.

First, Peter tells us to "make every effort to respond to God's
promises". God has given us so much and promised to give us so much
more. And our God is one who keeps His promises. But so often we make
very little effort to respond. Our response should come out of our
gratitude for all God has done. So if we make very little effort to
respond to God, wouldn't that mean that we aren't really that grateful?

Next Peter teaches us a proper response, one that would make our
Father in Heaven proud. He says to supplement our faith. Faith is so
important. But faith should not ever be in word only. It should be
backed up by our works. In this case, Peter teaches that God would love
to see our faith backed by moral excellence (living godly lives),
knowledge (of God's Word and through it His will), self-control, patient
endurance, godliness, affection for other Christians and love for
everyone.

I leave you with a question for today. It's not how do you live up
to all these because none of us is perfectly sinless. It is, however,
how much is your desire and effort to live in these ways?